The field guide

Help for grown-ups · Contact support@dragonlock.app

Dragonlock locks the apps you choose on your child's phone until the day's quests are done. Your child proves each quest with a photo, their pet checks it, and the chest opens for the time you set.

• What you need
• Set up a child Apple Account
• Set up your child's phone
• What gets locked
• How photos are checked and deleted
• Asking for more time
• Pausing, free days and bonus time
• When a phone is offline
• Try it on your own phone
• More than one child
• Cancelling the subscription
• Restoring a purchase
• Removing Dragonlock from your child's phone
• Deleting your family's data
• Contact us

What you need

• Your iPhone, on iOS 26 or later. This is where you write quests, approve photos and answer asks.
• Your child's iPhone, on iOS 26 or later.
• A child Apple Account for your child, in your Family Sharing. Apple lets apps like Dragonlock lock apps on a child's phone only through Family Sharing, so this is required. If your child signs in with your Apple Account, or an adult account, the lock won't work.
• iCloud turned on on both phones. The two phones talk through your iCloud.

Set up a child Apple Account in Family Sharing

You do this once, on your own iPhone, as the Family Sharing organizer:

1. If you don't have Family Sharing yet, set it up: Settings › Family.
2. Open Settings and tap Family.
3. Tap the Add Member button, then Create Child Account, then Continue.
4. Enter your child's name and birthday (check the birthday: Apple uses it to treat the account as a child's).
5. Follow the steps on screen.
6. Sign in to your child's iPhone with that new account (Settings › Sign in).

Apple's own guide: Create an Apple Account for your child. If your child already has an Apple Account and is under 13, you can invite it into your family from Settings › Family › Add Member.

Set up your child's phone

1. On your phone, on your day in Dragonlock, tap Set up [your child]'s phone. You'll see a six-letter code. It works once, for 10 minutes.
2. Install Dragonlock on your child's phone, open it, and tap This is my kid's phone.
3. Type the code. The phones connect through iCloud.
4. Dragonlock asks for Screen Time. iOS asks you to approve it with your Apple Account password: that's what makes it a parental control your child can't turn off.
5. Pick the apps, categories or websites to lock until the quests are done.
6. Set a six-digit parent PIN your child doesn't know. It protects the app picker and pairing.
7. Hand the phone over. Your child meets their pet, and their day begins.

If something stops you: "not a child account" means the phone is signed in to an adult account; "not in your family" means the child's account isn't in your Family Sharing yet; "code expired" means make a new code on your phone.

What gets locked

• Only what you picked on your child's phone. Everything else stays open, including Phone and Messages unless you picked them.
• When a locked app is opened, your child sees their pet guarding it, with how many quests are left.
• When the day's quests are done, the chest opens and the locked apps open for the time you chose. When the time's up, they lock again. A new day starts at midnight, in your time zone.
• Which apps are locked stays on your child's phone. To change them, open Dragonlock on your child's phone, hold the top-right corner for three seconds, enter your parent PIN, then choose Change the apps.
• Your day shows whether the lock is working: whether Screen Time is on, how many apps are locked, and when your child's phone last checked in.

How photos are checked and deleted

• Your child takes the photo in Dragonlock's own camera. They can't pick one from their photo library.
• If you turned photo checks on, the photo and the quest's title go to Claude, an AI by Anthropic, through our checker on Cloudflare, to check the quest looks done (Cloudflare Workers AI may check it instead). Your child's profile name is not added separately, but names or other private details in the quest title or photo may be sent. Avoid including them. Our checker does not save the photo. Neither AI trains on it. Anthropic deletes it within 30 days, unless its safety systems flag it (then it may keep it for up to 2 years). The sentences you write quests from go to Jev, an AI by TypeSafe, which turns them into quests and doesn't train on them. A clear yes can mark the quest done, unless you require your approval for every photo; anything unsure comes to you. If a face is in the picture, the pet asks for another photo without one.
• If you chose "I'll check every photo myself", every photo needs your approval before the quest counts. This setting does not stop AI processing if the AI helper is allowed.
• If you turn the AI helper off, no photo or quest text goes to the checker. Photos still sync privately to your phone for you to approve or send back with "Not yet".
• You can change these choices any time in Settings › Privacy.
• Every photo is deleted 7 days after it's taken, from both phones and your iCloud (the next time either phone opens Dragonlock after the 7 days). You can delete all photos now in Settings › Privacy.

More detail in the privacy policy.

A new phone, or start over

A new phone for your child: on your phone, Settings › Your kid › Pair a new phone. Your quests, pet and settings stay; the old phone's pairing and photos are removed when it next connects. Set up the new phone with its new code.

A new phone for you: set up Dragonlock on it. On your child's phone, hold the top-right corner for three seconds, enter your parent PIN and choose Pair again. This clears that phone's old day, queued photos and app picks. Enter the new code and pick the apps again.

Change the parent PIN from that grown-up corner after entering the current PIN. If you forget it, use Family Sharing to turn off Dragonlock's Screen Time access, remove the app from the child's phone, then reinstall and pair again. The child's device passcode can't reset this PIN.

Asking for more time

• Your child can ask from a locked app's screen, or from the shut chest in Dragonlock: 15 or 30 more minutes, or time for school work.
• The ask lands as a note on your day, with a notification if you've turned them on. Answer Yes (15, 30 or 60 minutes) or Not today.
• A yes opens the apps on your child's phone for that time. It ends by itself.

Pausing, free days and bonus time

• Pause (sick day, road trip): on your day, tap the lock line, then Pause for 1 hour or until tomorrow. Everything opens; tap Resume to lock again early.
• Free days: Settings › The lock, then tap the days of the week that are always free (for example Saturday and Sunday). For a one-off, choose "Today's a free day".
• Bonus time: on your day, give +15 or +30 minutes, whether or not the quests are done.

When a phone is offline

The lock keeps working without a connection. A photo taken offline waits on your child's phone ("I'll check it when we're back online") and goes as soon as it's back. Changes you make wait too, and your day says so. Notifications need both phones online.

Try it on your own phone

Want to see the lock before handing over a phone? Settings › The lock › Try it on this phone. Dragonlock uses Screen Time on your phone: pick one app, open it to see the pet's shield, play your child's day, take a photo, and watch the chest open. Turn it off at the end, and everything goes back to normal. This is only for trying it yourself; your child's phone always needs the child account setup above.

More than one child

One subscription covers up to 4 children. Tap your child's initial at the top of your day, then Add a kid. Each child gets their own pet, quests, chest and phone. A second grown-up (another parent approving from their own phone) isn't available in V1.

Cancelling the subscription

1. On your iPhone, open Settings and tap your name.
2. Tap Subscriptions, then Dragonlock.
3. Tap Cancel Subscription.

Or from Dragonlock: Settings › The key › Manage subscription. You keep everything until the end of the period you paid for. After that, every lock on your child's phone opens; Dragonlock never locks a child out because a subscription ended. Deleting the app doesn't cancel the subscription. Apple's guide: Cancel a subscription from Apple. Refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.

Restoring a purchase

New phone, or reinstalled? On the first screen tap Restore, or later Settings › The key › Restore. Use the same Apple Account you subscribed with. Your child's phone doesn't need its own subscription.

Removing Dragonlock from your child's phone

• Delete Dragonlock on your child's phone like any app. Because you approved Screen Time for it, iOS asks for your Apple Account password first, so your child can't do it alone.
• Deleting it removes every lock Dragonlock set on that phone.
• To remove the child from your family in Dragonlock too, use Settings › [your child] › Delete on your phone.

Deleting your family's data

• Photos now: Settings › Privacy › Delete photos now.
• One child: Settings › [your child] › Delete.
• Everything: Settings › Privacy › Delete the family. This removes your family's data from both phones and your iCloud and opens every lock. It doesn't cancel your subscription (see above).

We don't keep a copy of your family's data, so there's nothing more to delete on our side. Questions: support@dragonlock.app.

Contact us

Email support@dragonlock.app. Tell us which phone (yours or your child's), its iOS version, and what you saw. We answer within two business days. Please don't send photos of your child.